Capacity

Everything works according to design, so if you’re not getting the business capacity you need it’s because you haven’t built the structure for it. My Coaching Tip today will show you how to design a better business for recovery, efficiency and scalability.

There are three things you must have for rapid growth:
• Fitness
• Systems
• People

Just as your level of fitness in the gym determines your speed of recovery, your business fitness shapes your capacity for listings and sales. The best agents recover quickly from failure and keep going to the next opportunity without pause. It’s not that they never fall short; they do. They simply don’t let the shortfalls stall their momentum. If you falter every time you lose a listing, then you miss out on the next opportunity. Procrastination is a real killer – you’re not going to progress if you don’t make the decision to pick yourself up, get back on track and start running again.

Having a tight system in place helps you recover quickly and stay on track. Automating as many processes as possible reduces time spent inputting data and maintaining the system. Entering data just once is key – your system should then take that data and send it where it needs to go. New client information gathered from open for inspections and online inquiries can be automatically channelled into categories, email listings, reports, call lists and alerts if you design your system efficiently. And your people are a vital component of your system.

In order to do the work that’s most important, you must have capable, trainable people in place to ensure everything gets done without your having to put your valuable time into housekeeping. For manual data entry as well as providing you with lists and reports you require for prospecting, you need assistants. Making sure your system is structured properly assures that their work can be done quickly and accurately. The less time they have to spend performing their tasks, the more work they can accomplish for you. Your system design coupled with your choices in hiring will determine how productive your agency can be.

Look at your business and evaluate your fitness, your systems and your people. Where do you see blockages? Where are there gaps? What can you automate? What tasks and processes can be handled more efficiently? How can you recover more quickly? Knowing what to look for will help you address these problems and increase your capacity.

Make sure you look into our Josh Phegan Company membership, Master Class Program, Prospecting School, and our incredible Blueprint Event, all coming up soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Ep 4 — Growth

In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips talk about what causes some agents to stop growing their business. Fear and misgivings around taking the next steps upward is usually the problem. Many agents also reach a peak and feel that they can coast, but that’s where they lose momentum and fall behind. Consistency with your goals, health and aspirations are crucial.

Tracking your numbers for listings, sales and income production will keep you driving forward. Monthly goals with weekly progress checks will keep you active and motivated as you reach and surpass goals you thought were impossible. Be open to change and adapt to new trends and technologies. The more opportunities you create, the more exciting the work becomes and the more abundance you realise.

Ep 3 – Time Management

Time management is the topic for this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents as Josh Phegan and Alexander Phillips discuss how your work day should begin early with a consistent daily regimen. Your entire year should be scheduled in advance with your primary focus on daily prospecting and appointments, but also make sure you book holidays and events to look forward to as a reward for your hard work.

Energy management through exercise and nutrition is vital, too, because you can’t do the work if you don’t maintain high energy. Keeping prospecting calls short and to the point is necessary, so know exactly what you need to tell the client and questions you need to ask, and keep on topic. Delegating tasks to assistants is also key so you can stay focused on the work that matters most.

Ep 2 – Prospecting


In this High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan interviews Alexander Phillips on prospecting, which is your most important task for building listings. A clean database with accurate categories is vital. The database has to be growing constantly, and every single person you know should be in it. Open homes are critical for lead generation, and everyone you meet is a four-dimensional customer: a potential buyer, landlord, tenant, or seller.

Maintain relationships and be relevant, frequent and consistent to all your customers so that when they need an agent they will come to you. The key to exceptional growth inside your business is to be prospecting all the time. Alexander outlines his daily schedule that keeps him on the phone or meeting appointments with customers every minute.

Ep 1 – Building Momentum

Success in real estate depends on how hard you drive yourself and how much you enjoy it. In this first High Performance Podcast for Real Estate Agents Josh Phegan talks with Alexander Phillips about his brand, Phillips Pantzer Donnelley, which cleared fees of 4.85 million last year. Alexander is driven by his desire for financial security and a high quality of life. He believes you have to make a decision about what kind of agent you want to become and have a clear vision of where you want to end up.

A mentor who is where you want to be will help you clarify your own aspirations. Moving from scarcity to abundance requires raising the bar on your goals every year and being accountable for your progress every day. Learning to save money in order to grow wealth is key. Structure your life as well as your work — schedule everything long-term. Having a clear vision also makes it easier to get your team on board with your directives.

 

Business Models

Too many agents start out without a plan and end up watching their business morph into something they never wanted it to become. In this Growth, Leadership and Management Tip I’m talking about business models to help you visualize your growth, decide on a model that works for you, and make that happen.

As your business evolves you must start thinking about areas other than listings and sales. You have a finance department, a property management department, a productive lead agent, and you see growth happening more rapidly. But when should you decide what you want to be doing by then?

You think about that now, before you get there, or you will lose momentum while you’re trying to decide what to do next. Do you want to keep doing sales, or do you want to do management? Do you want to expand into other offices? Do you want franchises or branchises? How many offices do you want to manage? You need to know your options and choose a business model that is scalable. Otherwise you will find yourself on a path you don’t want to follow, and your growth will stall as you flail to gain control.

Here are some guidelines to consider: Up to around six offices can be company owned. Beyond that you need to start partnering with directors to run branchises that you own. At 10 to 11 offices you will need to decide whether to become a franchise. At 20 offices you are looking at becoming a licensed business office because you have expenses and salespeople to pay, so even at $20 to $40 million in revenue you may only realize 10% profit. You need to plan ahead for the costs of expansion or you may not be able to survive your growth.

Having a career path for your salespeople is also necessary so you can place some of your existing people in your new offices, or make some of them owners inside of your business, and know when to make these moves well in advance. If you love sales then you can decide to hire other people to run things while you stay on the tours. But you have to make a decision now.

You should begin to see why you need to plan ahead and not be taken by surprise when your business really takes off. If you are serious about achieving rapid growth then you have to be clear now on how you want to model your business to take shape the way you want.

As you progress in your business, make sure you look into our Josh Phegan Company membership as well as our Master Class Program, Prospecting School, and our incredible Blueprint Event, all coming up soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this month’s Growth, Leadership and Management Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next month.

Market Appraisal vs Listing Presentation

A market appraisal is not a listing presentation, and if you make the mistake of treating it as such you will drive customers away. However, done properly the market appraisal leads directly into a listing and sale.

Often the first step to building a lasting relationship with a client is a market appraisal on their property, but you need to understand their concerns around selling their home. They have real fears as to where to relocate, whether the price they get for their home will be enough, renovations before they can sell, and possibly securing employment in a new place. You must be sensitive to the client’s concerns and advise them accordingly.

Visualize the client’s process as a traffic light: If they are at red, they can’t move. Orange, they could move with the right sale price. Green, they are comfortable with listing their home. Your approach is key in helping them move through those levels by answering their questions and helping them make decisions that lead them to that green light. Only then can you progress to your listing presentation.

The next level is the listing presentation where you discuss specifics around getting the best price for the home, what the client wants to see happen, what they are looking for in an agent and what you can do for them if they choose to work with you. You then help them determine the best method of sale, details of marketing and expectations for selling price, then finally confirm your fee.

The listing presentation happens after the client has made a decision to sell; the market appraisal is your opportunity to step the client towards making that decision. If you push the client too aggressively towards listing before they are ready you will damage the relationship and lose their business, so it is vital that you understand this sequence of events.

Occasionally you will meet a client who is ready to move right away, and you should be prepared to act on that, but wait for that signal to turn green – be certain the client is truly ready before pushing forward. This is all part of building your pipeline and you do that by nurturing relationships.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Directions Meeting

Everybody on your team needs to know exactly what they need to do each day to keep your business moving. I have found the best way to accomplish this is to have a daily directions meeting to set clear goals for the day. You may say there’s not enough happening in your business to have a daily meeting about it. My answer to that is that you aren’t seeing activity because you’re not making it happen, and you need to get to work on that now.

There are 5 basic questions to ask in each directions meeting:

1. Where are our opportunities right now?
2. What are the next five deals that we’re going to be putting together?
3. Who are the next five people we need to speak to today?
4. What goals did we set yesterday that did not get done?
5. What is our primary goal for today to achieve instant leverage?

Identifying your opportunities gets you clear on the people you need to contact, which of those people you already know, which properties are being developed in your area, and which of those people are active. This question will kickstart your momentum for the day.

Tying down your next five deals begins with reviewing your existing stock. Discuss what needs to be done to make those properties more saleable, such as modifying the seller’s’ pricing, getting buyers to increase offers, and taking any other actions that will get deals made.

Listing five people to contact today targets the sellers and buyers, solicitors, brokers, inspectors, developers and any other people in the marketplace you need to actively progress to the next level in order to remove blockages and close those deals.

Any goals you set yesterday that did not get met must be handled today. Don’t let them slide or be forgotten – if they were important enough for your short list yesterday then they are urgent tasks to accomplish today.

The summary challenge, then, is what you can do today to get instant leverage. That will be the most important accomplishment for the day and sets the bar for everything else on your action list.

Covering these five questions in your directions meeting each morning is the most effective way to generate focus and motivation for everyone on your team because you will all know what is most important. If you are just starting out and you are the “team” then make it part of your schedule now to cover these five points with yourself as you begin each day, and continue to do this consistently as you build your team and grow your business.

Make sure you look into our Josh Phegan Company membership, Master Class Program, Prospecting School, and our incredible Blueprint Event, all coming up soon.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Progressing the Pipeline

You need to make sure you have the pipeline you think you have, or your listings and sales will suffer. The first key is to have a lead magnet bringing customers to you so you have plenty of listings in the market every month.

One of your best lead magnets is your social proof, and the most basic form is having your for sale and auction signs on lots of properties, and sold stickers applied in a timely manner. And of course, open for inspections are a primary source of leads. You will meet a good number of investors and first time buyers this way, especially in the lower section of the market.

First time buyers are potential future customers because they are least likely to stay in that first home for more than 3 years, so maintain relationships with those people and they will come to you when they need an agent to sell that home as well as buy their next property. Being aware of where your potential customers come from is vital. Property management investment leads are also fertile ground for nurturing future transactions.

The lead nurture cycle comes next, and involves actively moving clients toward their next steps before losing momentum with them. Sending out market reports is good, but you also have to meet with as many of those clients as possible and track on their progress so you can identify who might be getting ready to move forward. Make yourself available for market appraisals, updates on property values, investment advice, property improvement tips, and making sure your clients always know their options.

From lead generation through lead nurture, the next step is lead conversion through the listing presentation. All these numbers need to be measured and evaluated regularly.

Let’s review the core categories in your database:
• Buyers
• Buyer hit list
• Potential sellers
• Market appraisals
• Seller hit list
• Current listings
• Past clients who bought from you
• Past clients who sold with you
• Key referrers
• Landlords

You need to know how many people you have in each category in order to see what stage each client has reached in your pipeline and where any blockages are.

List consistently and you will sell consistently. Every day your commitment is to make those calls, book those appointments, meet with your clients, track the numbers and keep that pipeline flowing smoothly.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.

Reward for Effort

Rewarding yourself before your important tasks are completed leaves you with nothing to work toward or look forward to, and little motivation to do the work that will make you a successful agent. In this Coaching Tip I’m talking about self-discipline and learning to see rewards as the benefits of your accomplishments after you have done the work that needs to be done.

A mindset of rewarding yourself only for work you have actually finished is vital to building and maintaining momentum. It starts with having a schedule for everything you must do to make sure it gets done. Your rewards are built into that schedule. Set a time to wake up and a time to be at work, and a time frame for the first task of the day. Once that task is completed, have a reward – like a morning coffee. But discipline yourself not to have that coffee until that task is finished. You have to earn that coffee before you get it.

Your most important task every day is to book appointments, and you do that with prospecting call sessions. You may already keep track of your call sessions, but you also need to track the number of appointments you are making. You also need to make sure you are scheduling for the things you need to sustain your energy so you can do your work. For example, don’t skip meals. Meals are not rewards; food is fuel and you can’t keep up with your busy schedule without proper fuel. Think of lunch as your first appointment, just as important as any other, and book that every day.

We use a code to categorise each appointment so we can track them accurately:

MAP = Market appraisal
BAP = Buyer appointment
LAP = Listing appointment

Using the search function in your calendar software you can use these codes to see how many market appraisals, listings and appointments you have done in a given time period. This then tells you where you need to improve as well as where you are doing well. This is also where you can set goals for your rewards.

I find that every six weeks is a good window for setting goals and earning rewards. Know what you need to achieve, and know what you will get for your hard work. Give yourself something to strive for that is personally rewarding beyond the business, like a weekend trip or a family event. After all, working is not an end in itself, but the means by which you enrich your life. These are the goals that will make the work to acquire them more meaningful and enjoyable.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s Coaching Tip, and I look forward to seeing you here again next week.